# THREE Simple Tips to Avoid Overtraining | Ep 487

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 1 May 2024, 16 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/86128956/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-3-30%2F376095930-44100-2-53b5cab688169.mp3

The "more is better" mentality is very common amongst triathletes, but often causes more problems than it solves. If you've ever experienced the feeling of overwhelming fatigue, and "easy" training sessions feeling anything but easy, you're most likely a victim of overtraining. This video is a must watch for you! We dive into the importance of recovery - the most overlooked and valuable aspect of a triathlete's training program, and why you simply won't make the performance gains you're capable of if you don't plan and allow yourself adequate recovery time. We also explain how measuring your HRV (heart rate variability) helps ensure your training is focused only on what your body is capable of absorbing, and the dangers of trying to fight the signals your body is sending you. And finally - the dreaded "GREY ZONE" of training - avoid this at all costs! * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this show? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict! http://team.oxygenaddict.com - The most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Join the Team Oxygenaddict waiting list and be the first to find out when a space becomes available: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/waiting-list * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:03] Hello and welcome to the Oxygenating podcast.
[0:05] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors Precision Fuel
[0:08] and hydration.com. You can personalise your
[0:11] fuelling and hydration strategy so you perform your best with
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[0:18] fuel. Decode Oxygen 24 at Precision
[0:21] Fuel and hydration.com Welcome to the show everybody.
[0:24] I'm your host, coach Rob Wilby and every week we bring you an
[0:28] episode of this podcast to help motivate and inspire you for
[0:31] your triathlon goals for this season.
[0:33] Listen, a couple of quick things you could do for us before we
[0:36] jump into today's episode. If you do like this episode,
[0:39] please consider following us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
[0:44] And also if you're watching on YouTube, if you could like and
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[0:50] It helps the show get shown to more people by the algorithm on
[0:54] on the podcast players and on YouTube, so we'd really, really
[0:56] appreciate that. And secondly, if you're looking
[0:59] for help and advice with your triathlon training, please
[1:02] consider getting in touch with us.
[1:03] You can read all about what we offer at teamoxygenaddict.com
[1:07] and then you can e-mail us at help@oxygenaddict.com or there's
[1:11] a link in the show notes to book a call with me or one of the
[1:14] coaching team. We can discuss how we can best
[1:17] help you out with your triathlon goals for this season.
[1:21] On this episode we're going to be talking about 3 mistakes to
[1:25] avoid to do with over training for Ironman triathletes and boy,
[1:30] this is a this is a topic that's really, really close to my
[1:34] heart. I really think that overtraining
[1:36] is the biggest threat to Ironman triathlete success, and the
[1:41] reason is it's so closely linked with the Taipei personality that
[1:46] highly driven, the highly motivated, the high achiever,
[1:50] the type of person who's drawn to a man.
[1:53] That massive benefit that comes from being really driven can
[1:57] also be a real drawback at times as well.
[2:00] And we see this a lot with athletes who they really, really
[2:04] want to achieve something and that comes at the cost of having
[2:08] planned out what's reasonable. And that ends U with an
[2:11] overtrained it ends U with a tending towards sickness or even
[2:15] injury, and it can be a real problem.
[2:18] So the first big mistake that I see, I'm an athletes making to
[2:22] do with overtraining is simply not planning recovery into their
[2:27] training plan. So the way I would advise people
[2:30] to think about this is the recovery day.
[2:33] The rest period that you have is the time when your body absorbs
[2:36] the training that you've done and it responds with an increase
[2:40] in fitness. And put very simply, if you
[2:43] don't plan recovery into your training plan week, if you don't
[2:46] plan recovery into your training plan months, you are never going
[2:50] to make as much fitness gains as you would if you plan it in.
[2:54] And that can sound counterintuitive because we tend
[2:57] to think it's the training what we do that's going to make us
[3:01] get fitter and stronger. And that's true to an extent,
[3:04] but it's only during the time of recovery and recovering from the
[3:08] training that we actually make steps forward in our fitness.
[3:12] And so I'll go as far as to say this, if you're not recovering
[3:15] from a training session, you may as well not have done that
[3:18] training session at all because it hasn't had the effect you
[3:21] wanted it to do. And then extreme cases we'll see
[3:25] athletes unfortunately train themselves into the ground when
[3:28] they could reduce their training volume by 20%, even 40% and get
[3:34] faster and have much better race results come race day despite
[3:38] actually having spent less hours training.
[3:41] So that's got to be the number one takeaway is that you need to
[3:45] plan and recovery into every single part of your week and you
[3:49] need to plan recovery into a month long block as well.
[3:52] So with the athletes that we coach, I give you an example.
[3:55] We have one complete recovery focus day every week.
[3:59] That will either be a total rest day or it'll be a recovery swim
[4:03] depending on the needs of the athlete.
[4:06] So if you're newer to the sport athlete, I will say in almost
[4:09] all circumstances having a total rest day is going to be the best
[4:13] thing that you can do to recover from training.
[4:16] For those of you who are from a swimming background or who are
[4:18] very comfortable in the water, what you'll find is you can go
[4:21] and do a recovery swim and get out of the water feeling much
[4:26] better, feeling fresher. It's like a free massage and
[4:29] you're ready to go for the rest of the week.
[4:31] And that doesn't seem to be the case for a lot of triathletes,
[4:34] certainly the ones who are learning to swim or who learn to
[4:37] swim relatively recently. All swims tend to be quite
[4:41] taxing, and if that's you, that's OK.
[4:44] You just have to accept that the recovery swim isn't going to
[4:48] make you recover more, so you shouldn't be doing it at all.
[4:52] So your recovery day should be based around whichever activity
[4:56] you need to do from nothing to recovery swim.
[4:59] That means you are more ready to accept and absorb the training
[5:04] you're gonna be able to do for the rest of the week.
[5:07] Now, some things you can do during your recovery day.
[5:10] You can get a recovery massage, you can get extra sleep.
[5:14] You can make sure you're taking care of high quality nutrition,
[5:18] avoiding junk food, avoiding alcohol.
[5:20] All of these things will contribute to how well your body
[5:23] recovers and that's your your main recovery focus date of the
[5:27] week. And then later on in our in our
[5:30] week, we sketch out a much lighter day as well.
[5:33] So we'll kind of have a two peak week for athletes.
[5:35] Most of our athletes are going to have a longer ride the
[5:38] weekend and they're going to have a longer run usually during
[5:41] the week. So there's kind of two peaks of
[5:43] fatigue that happen. And we try and make sure that
[5:46] either Friday or Saturday or a little bit lighter so that
[5:50] they're ready to really deliver the goods on that long ride at
[5:53] the weekend and then again recover on the Monday.
[5:56] Then they're ready to go for the rest of the week.
[5:59] One of the real challenges I see with with athletes who we coach
[6:03] and who have the plan is that sometimes they can or a small
[6:07] number of people. I'll say that a small number of
[6:09] people sometimes can be driven by compulsion and can be tempted
[6:13] to do something that's on a plan that they might have missed
[6:16] earlier in the week, even if it's at the expense of the
[6:18] recovery. And I'm really going to
[6:20] encourage athletes. If that sounds like you and it
[6:23] sounds like I'm speaking to you now, then then take away this
[6:27] from it. We want you to make the most
[6:30] progress possible across the time frame and that's not going
[6:34] to mean training every day and it's certainly not going to mean
[6:37] training hard every day. Sometimes doing less is more,
[6:41] doing a recovery day as necessary in order to bounce
[6:44] back and have our next peak be progressively higher.
[6:48] So don't think that you're slacking by having a recovery
[6:51] day or a no training day. That's not the case at all.
[6:54] You're actually being really smart and that's what I want.
[6:57] I want athletes who are making the right choices, not the
[7:01] choice that sometimes, you know the type of personality can get
[7:05] into the trap of thinking I'm going to do this thing anyway,
[7:08] even though I'm really tired, even though I'm going to choose
[7:11] to do it because it's really, really hard.
[7:14] I want you to choose to make the right decision because it's
[7:16] really smart. That's what's going to get you
[7:19] the most gains in the least possible time.
[7:22] And that extends out even to athletes who sometimes will do
[7:27] more than has been asked for on a training plan because they've
[7:31] got an opportunity to do so. So it might be that they go and
[7:34] extend the run to longer than is written, or it might be that
[7:37] they extend a long ride to more than is written.
[7:40] That can be something that you can get away with once or twice,
[7:44] but you don't want to be getting into the habit of doing it.
[7:47] Because if if we wanted an athlete doing longer runs or
[7:50] doing longer rides, we'd be asking for that in the training
[7:54] plan. So in almost all cases, you're
[7:56] going to make the most consistent progress across time
[8:00] by following a progressive training plan across time and
[8:04] throwing in a random, really high volume day just because you
[8:08] can. Because you've got an afternoon
[8:09] off work or you've got a free day at the weekend when your
[8:13] partner's taking the kids away and you have the opportunity.
[8:16] I would really encourage you to not do that and not layer in
[8:20] extra training and encourage you to layer in extra recovery so
[8:24] you're ready to give all you can to that next training session.
[8:29] Now, the second mistake that I see people making around
[8:32] overtraining is we'll call it grey zone training.
[8:37] And this tends to be the case with athletes that we don't
[8:40] coach. With athletes that we do coach,
[8:43] we don't have this problem at all because we're really
[8:45] specific about what pace we want athletes to run, what power we
[8:50] want them to ride at, and what pace we want them to swim at,
[8:53] and there's there's no wiggle room there.
[8:55] But everyone knows exactly what they're aiming for and if they
[8:57] don't manage to do that, that a mistake has been made.
[9:01] But the challenge is with self coached athletes.
[9:03] So if you're listening to the podcast or watching on YouTube
[9:06] and you're a self coached or uncoached athlete can almost
[9:10] guarantee that you've fallen into this trap at least once and
[9:14] probably most of the time. What I mean by grey zone
[9:17] training is that the easy and steady sessions tend towards
[9:22] being a little bit too hard almost all or all of the time.
[9:27] And because of that, the hard sessions end up being not quite
[9:31] hard enough for you to reach the kind of intensities that are
[9:35] going to make the changes to your fitness that you'd ideally
[9:38] want to see. So typically we see that
[9:41] endurance runs, endurance swims, endurance rides tend to be just
[9:46] a little bit out of that endurance zone and tend to be
[9:49] pushing on a little bit too much.
[9:51] And then when it comes time for specific hard interval work,
[9:56] whenever that's appropriate within each sport, athletes are
[10:00] too tired to deliver exactly the intensity that we would need an
[10:05] athlete to do to get the changes at the top end of the
[10:08] Physiology. O that's my warning to you.
[10:11] It tends to be that because you're motivated to push a bit
[10:15] too hard on the majority of the sessions, which should be a bit
[10:18] more steady, you can't actually push as hard as you need to on
[10:22] that one or two high intensity sessions during a week.
[10:26] And they tend to fall between the sticks.
[10:28] And so because of that, all the training ends up being just out
[10:32] of the ideal zone where we'd want it to be and none of the
[10:36] training ends up really doing the job that we really need it
[10:40] to do for an Ironman triathlete. And so if you're self coached or
[10:44] uncoached and you're looking to do especially for Iron Man, just
[10:47] be aware of that. I want that thought in your head
[10:50] that if you're wondering whether you should push yourself on a
[10:52] little bit harder on the bike at the four hour point, then the
[10:56] answer is probably no. It's it's.
[10:58] Make sure you know what a reasonable percentage of FTP is
[11:02] for you to be riding at. Make sure you know what a
[11:05] reasonable pace for you to be running at is for your goal,
[11:08] Ironman. And then you've got to have a
[11:10] really, really good reason to be going harder than that.
[11:14] And honestly, just because you feel like it, because you felt
[11:18] good today, that's not a good enough reason.
[11:21] You've got to have those exact intensities, right?
[11:23] And you've got to deliver them to get the maximum return for
[11:27] your training energy, if you like.
[11:29] Like I said, with the athletes that we coach, we're in control
[11:33] of all of this. We can set FTP levels relative
[11:37] to a test. Swim pace is relative to a test,
[11:40] run pace is relative to a test. And then when they get that
[11:43] plan, it'll come U on the watch I I want you to run at 5 minutes
[11:47] 22 per kilometre or ride at 170 watts on the bike.
[11:52] So there is no grey area there. We know exactly what the
[11:55] athletes know exactly what the coaching team want from them in
[11:59] order to get the maximum return. So it's a little bit harder for
[12:02] you uncoached or self coached athletes.
[12:04] So spend that little bit of time doing the research, know what
[12:08] the targets are that you're aiming for and then make sure
[12:11] that you're actually delivering those.
[12:14] OK. The third mistake that I see
[12:16] people making that one is to avoid around over training is
[12:20] not using heart rate variability as a guide or not following the
[12:27] directions of your heart rate variability app when you've used
[12:31] it. So for those of you who've never
[12:34] heard of heart rate variability or HRV, it's a very accurate
[12:40] biofeedback system that your body can tell you how much
[12:43] training stress you're under or how much overall stress your
[12:46] body is experiencing at the moment, and therefore how ready
[12:51] it is to absorb hard, intense, or very long training sessions.
[12:56] And what we found over time is by being guided by HRV readings,
[13:00] it means that on the days when everything is fine, you get that
[13:04] back U of I know my body is ready to absorb the training I
[13:08] want to do today, but on the days when you get an amber
[13:11] warning or a red warning, to say your body's under significant
[13:14] stress already. And likely, adding more stress
[13:17] on with heavy hard training isn't going to help and isn't
[13:21] going to be rewarded well just by skipping those hard, heavy,
[13:25] intense sessions that day and replacing them with an
[13:27] appropriate one. Athletes make more progress
[13:30] across time. So if you've never used HRV
[13:35] feedback before, really encourage you to go out, Get the
[13:37] a HRV for training. That's the best app that's out
[13:41] there that we've found. It's got some really good advice
[13:44] on their website. It'll tell you all about the
[13:46] different devices you can use to measure it, and importantly,
[13:49] which devices you shouldn't use to measure it.
[13:52] Because accuracy is really, really important in an HRV
[13:56] reading, and there are some devices that built in sensors
[13:59] are just not accurate to give you a reasonable reading,
[14:01] unfortunately. So again, bad data is worse than
[14:05] no data in this situation. So make sure you know which
[14:09] devices you can and should be using to measure your HRV.
[14:13] Then you can be really sure that your body is ready and able to
[14:16] absorb the training stress you're about to put on it.
[14:20] OK then, that brings us to the end of this week's episode.
[14:23] So here are some discount codes and deals for you over at
[14:26] Precision Fuel and hydration.com.
[14:28] Use the code Oxygen 24 for 15% off your first electrolyte
[14:32] order. And over at teamoxygenaddict.com
[14:36] I think we've got the most comprehensive triathlon coaching
[14:38] programme for busy age groupers. If you've enjoyed what you've
[14:42] heard today and the advice has helped you out, well, great
[14:44] stuff. I hope that's helped put some of
[14:46] your fears at rest, and I know from some of the calls we've had
[14:50] it's helping raise the right questions in the minds of people
[14:53] as to whether their current coaching relationship is working
[14:56] for them. If you're looking for a change
[14:59] or if you're looking for high quality proven coaching for Iron
[15:01] Man or 73 Triathlon this year, you can just check out the
[15:05] details of our coaching packages on our website at
[15:08] teamoxygenaddict.com. And then if you're interested,
[15:11] there's a link in the show notes below.
[15:13] You can join our waiting list and you'll be notified if the
[15:16] slot becomes available, and at that point you'll have a chance
[15:19] to book a call with us and see if you'd be a good fit for
[15:22] joining the team. So although we don't have slots
[15:24] available at the moment, we'll make those call appointments
[15:28] available to people as and when. We do have athletes who end
[15:32] their coaching packages during the season, if and when that
[15:35] happens. So remember, there's links in
[15:36] the show notes so you don't have to remember them till next week.
[15:40] Have a great safe training and racing week.
[15:42] I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've been listening to the Oxygenated
[15:45] podcast. See ya.

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